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Doctors and scientists urge Wellcome Trust to divest from fossil fuels

BMJ 2015; 350 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h3436 (Published 25 June 2015) Cite this as: BMJ 2015;350:h3436
  1. Zosia Kmietowicz
  1. 1The BMJ

More than 50 senior doctors and academics have signed a letter to the Wellcome Trust urging it to support action on climate change by pulling all of its investments from the world’s 200 largest fossil fuel companies over the next five years.

The call is part of the Guardian newspaper’s “Keep it in the ground” campaign, launched in March this year. The campaign recognises that to avoid the mean global temperature rising by more than 2°C, 80% of known coal reserves will have to stay underground, along with half the gas and a third of the oil reserves.1

The Guardian said that more than 200 institutions, worth over $50bn (£31.8bn; €44.7bn), have committed to divesting from fossil fuels—including universities, …

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